Social Advertisements and Other Informational Messages on a Social Networking Website, and Advertising Model for Same

ABSTRACT

A social networking website logs information about actions taken by members of the website. For a particular member of the website, the website generates socially relevant ads for the member based on the actions logged for other members on the website to whom the member is connected (i.e., the member&#39;s online friends). The advertiser associated with the social ad may compensate the social networking website for publishing the ad on the website. When presenting a member with a social ad, the website may optimize advertising revenue by selecting an ad from the received ads that will maximize the expected value of the social ad. The expected value may be computed according to a function that includes the member&#39;s affinity for the ad content and the bid amount. The technique is also applied for providing socially relevant information off the social networking website.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a division of U.S. application Ser. No. 12/193,702,filed Aug. 18, 2008, which claims the benefit of U.S. ProvisionalApplication No. 60/985,631, filed Nov. 5, 2007, each of which isincorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

This invention relates generally to social networking websites and otherwebsites in which users can form connections with each other, and inparticular to using those connections in the websites to generate andcommunicate social advertisements and other messages.

Social networks, or social utilities that track and enable connectionsbetween members (including people, businesses, and other entities), havebecome prevalent in recent years. In particular, social networkingwebsites allow members to communicate information more efficiently. Forexample, a member may post contact information, background information,job information, hobbies, and/or other member-specific data to alocation associated with the member on a social networking website.Other members can then review the posted data by browsing memberprofiles or searching for profiles including specific data. The socialnetworking websites also allow members to associate themselves withother members, thus creating a web of connections among the members ofthe social networking website. These connections among the members canbe exploited by the website to offer more relevant information to eachmember in view of the members' own stated interests in theirconnections.

Social networking websites typically incorporate a system for connectingmembers to content that is most likely to be relevant to each member.For example, members may be grouped according to one or more commonattributes in their profiles, such as geographic location, employer, jobtype, age, music preferences, interests, or other attributes. Members ofthe social networking website or external parties can then use thesegroups to customize or target information delivery so that informationthat might be of particular interest to a group can be communicated tothat group.

Advertisers have attempted to leverage this information about members,targeting their ads to members whose interests best align with the ads.For example, a social networking website may display banner ads for aconcert to members who include an affinity for the performing band intheir website profile and live near a concert venue where that bandmight be performing. However, these attempts are no different thantargeting of ads that exist in many other contexts. Advertisers have notyet been able to exploit the relationships and connections among membersof a social networking website in a meaningful way to present theiradvertising message to consumers.

SUMMARY

To present advertising that is more effective than traditional targetedonline advertising, a social networking website uses the information itobtains about its members' actions and their connections to othermembers of the website. Rather than merely deliver a message that istargeted to a particular member based on the member's preferences,embodiments of the invention present advertisements that communicateinformation about actions taken by others in the member's network (i.e.,the member's friends and other relationships and connections in thesocial networking website)—or “social ads.” A social ad, for example,may inform a member that a friend (or a number of friends) of the memberhas purchased a particular item made by an advertiser, will attend anevent sponsored by an advertiser, or has added a connection to a profilefor a business or other entity.

Social ads allow advertisers to leverage one member's actions to promotespecific content to others who might be interested in thatinformation—not only because they might have similar interests, but alsobecause of their connection with the member. This mode of advertisingmay be more effective because members are more likely to be influencedto respond to an advertiser's message in the presence of informationthat their friends or other connections have also taken an actionrelated to the advertiser. Social ads thus allow advertisers to enjoythe credibility that consumers naturally give to their friends throughword of mouth advertising. Beyond simple targeting of ads that merelychase demand, therefore, this approach is better able to create orgenerate demand by providing the socially related information to membersabout their friends' actions.

In one embodiment, a social networking website collects and logsinformation about actions taken by members of the website. These loggedactions may be actions in connection with the social networking websiteand/or its members, with another website, or real world actions capturedand communicated to the social networking website. At a certain pointwhen a particular member is accessing the social networking website, thewebsite presents the member with information about actions taken byother members with whom the member is associated (i.e., the member's“friends”). The actions that are communicated may be of a commercialnature, where a third party advertiser desires to communicateinformation about or related to the actions to the member's friends. Theactions are communicated by presentation of social ads to the members.The social ads may be presented to a member while the member is usingthe social networking website, or as the member is using other websites.

In one embodiment, the selection of the friends to receive a givensocial ad is made so as to maximize the advertising revenue to thesocial networking website, particularly in cases where the resources topublish the ads are limited, for example, in terms of the available areaon a screen display for showing the social ads. In one advertisingmodel, each advertiser may bid a certain amount of money for eachinstance that a member clicks on or takes some other follow-on actionwith respect to the social ad. To increase the advertising revenue, thesocial networking website selects which social ads to present to aparticular member based on the expected revenue values for each of thequalified ads. The expected revenue value for a social ad may be afunction of a member's affinity for the content of the information inthe social ad (which acts as a proxy for the likelihood that a memberwill click on the social ad) and the amount of money that the socialnetworking website will receive for that action. In some cases theexpected revenue value may additionally be a function of the member'slikelihood of clicking on an ad based on other ads the member hasclicked on in the past.

The features and advantages described in this summary and the followingdetailed description are not all-inclusive. Many additional features andadvantages will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art in viewof the drawings, specification, and claims hereof.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an event diagram illustrating the collection of member actionsand the creation of social ads for the member's friends on the website,in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a network diagram of a system for providing social ads tomembers of a social networking website, in accordance with an embodimentof the invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a social networking website, in accordancewith an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 4 is an interaction diagram of a process for logging memberactions, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 5 is an interaction diagram of a process for generating a socialad, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart of a process for generating newsfeed stories, inaccordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 7 is a generic newsfeed story, in accordance with an embodiment ofthe invention.

FIG. 8 is a portion of a web page showing a combination of newsfeedstories and social ads, in accordance with an embodiment of theinvention.

FIG. 9 is a flow chart of a process for generating newsfeed stories, inaccordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 10 is an event diagram of an advertising model, in accordance withan embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 11 is a diagram of an ad request, in accordance with an embodimentof the invention.

FIG. 12 illustrates a process in which actions from a third partywebsite are communicated to and used by a social networking website togenerate social ads, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

The figures depict various embodiments of the present invention forpurposes of illustration only. One skilled in the art will readilyrecognize from the following discussion that alternative embodiments ofthe structures and methods illustrated herein may be employed withoutdeparting from the principles of the invention described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Advertising Related to Member Actions on a Website

A social networking website offers its members the ability tocommunicate and interact with other members of the website. In use,members join the social networking website and then add connections to anumber of other members to whom they desire to be connected. As usedherein, the term “friend” refers to any other member to whom a memberhas formed a connection, association, or relationship via the website.Connections may be added explicitly by a member, for example, the memberselecting a particular other member to be a friend, or automaticallycreated by the social networking site based on common characteristics ofthe members (e.g., members who are alumni of the same educationalinstitution). Connections in social networking websites are usually inboth directions, but need not be, so the terms “member” and “friend”depend on the frame of reference. For example, if Bob and Joe are bothmembers and connected to each other in the website, Bob and Joe, bothmembers, are also each other's friends. The connection between membersmay be a direct connection; however, some embodiments of a socialnetworking website allow the connection to be indirect via one or morelevels of connections. Also, the term friend need not require thatmembers actually be friends in real life, (which would generally be thecase when one of the members is a business or other entity); it simplyimplies a connection in the social networking website.

In addition to interactions with other members, the social networkingwebsite provides members with the ability to take actions on varioustypes of items supported by the website. These items may include groupsor networks (where “networks” here refer not to physical communicationnetworks, but rather social networks of people) to which members of thewebsite may belong, events or calendar entries in which a member mightbe interested, computer-based applications that a member may use via thewebsite, and transactions that allow members to buy or sell items viathe website. These are just a few examples of the items upon which amember may act on a social networking website, and many others arepossible.

As illustrated, the social networking website 100 maintains a number ofobjects for the different kinds of items with which a member mayinteract on the website 100. In one example embodiment, these objectsinclude member profiles 105, group objects 110, event objects 115,application objects 120, and transaction objects 125 (respectively,hereinafter, groups 110, events 115, applications 120, and transactions125). In one embodiment, an object is stored by the website 100 for eachinstance of its associated item. For example, a member profile 105 isstored for each member who joins the website 100, a group 110 is storedfor each group defined in the web site 100, and so on. The types ofobjects and the data stored for each is described in more detail belowin connection with FIG. 3, which illustrates an embodiment of the socialnetworking website 100.

The member of the website 100 may take specific actions on the website100, where each action is associated with one or more objects. The typesof actions that a member may perform in connection with an object isdefined for each object and largely depends on the type of itemrepresented by the object. A particular action may be associated withmultiple objects. Described below are a number of examples of particulartypes of objects that may be defined for the social networking website100, as well as a number of actions that can be taken for each object.These objects and the actions discussed herein are provided forillustration purposes only, and it can be appreciated that an unlimitednumber of variations and features can be provided on a social networkingwebsite 100.

The social networking website 100 maintains a member profile 105 foreach member of the website 100. Any action that a particular membertakes with respect to another member is associated with each member'sprofile 105. Such actions may include, for example, adding a connectionto the other member, sending a message to the other member, reading amessage from the other member, viewing content associated with the othermember, attending an event posted by another member, among others. Inaddition, a number of actions described below in connection with otherobjects are directed at particular members, so these actions areassociated with those members as well.

A group 110 may be defined for a group or network of members. Forexample, a member may define a group to be a fan club for a particularband. The website 100 would maintain a group 110 for that fan club,which might include information about the band, media content (e.g.,songs or music videos) by the band, and discussion boards on whichmembers of the group can comment about the band. Accordingly, memberactions that are possible with respect to a group 110 might includejoining the group, viewing the content, listening to songs, watchingvideos, and posting a message on the discussion board.

Similarly, an event 115 may be defined for a particular event, such as abirthday party. A member may create the event 115 by defininginformation about the event such as the time and place and a list ofinvitees. Other members may accept the invitation, comment about theevent, post their own content (e.g., pictures from the event), andperform any other actions enabled by the website 100 for the event 115.Accordingly, the creator of the event 115 as well as the invitees forthe event may perform various actions that are associated with that 115.

The social networking website may also enable members to addapplications to their profiles. These applications provide enhancedcontent and interactivity within the social networking website 100,which maintains an application object 120 for each application hosted inthe system. The applications may be provided by the website operatorand/or by third party developers. An example application is an enhancedmessaging service, in which members can send virtual objects (such as a“gift” or “flowers”) and an optional message to another member. The useof any functionality offered by the application may thus constitute anaction by the member in connection with the application 120. Inaddition, continuing the example from above, the receipt of the virtualgift or message may also be considered an action in connection with theapplication 120. It can therefore be appreciated that actions may bepassive and need not require active participation by a member.

Another type of object shown in the example of FIG. 1 is a transaction125. A transaction object enables members to make transactions, such asbuying, selling, renting, trading, or exchanging with other members. Forexample, a member may post a classified ad on the social networkingwebsite 100 to sell a car. The member would thus define a newtransaction 125, which may include a description of the car, a picture,and an asking price. Other members can then view this information andpossibly interact further with the transaction 125 by posting questionsabout the car and accepting the offer or making a counteroffer. Each ofthese interactions—view, question posting, offer, and counteroffer—areactions that are associated with the particular transaction 125.

When a member takes an action on the social networking website 100, theaction is recorded in an action log 160. In one embodiment, the website100 maintains the action log 160 as a database of entries. When anaction is taken on the website 100, therefore, the website 100 adds anentry for that action to the log 160. In one embodiment, an entrycomprises some or all of the following information:

Time: a timestamp of when the action occurred.

Member: an identifier for the member who performed the action.

Target: an identifier for the member to whom the action was directed.

Action Type: an identifier for the type of action performed.

Object: an identifier for an object acted on by the action.

Content: content associated with the action.

It can be appreciated that many types of actions that are possible inthe web site 100 need not require all of this information. For example,if a member changes a picture associated with the member's profile, theaction may be logged with just the member's identifier, an action typedefining a picture change, and the picture or a link thereto as thecontent.

In one embodiment, the social networking website 100 also logs actionsthat a member takes on a third party website 140. The social networkingwebsite 100 may learn of the member's actions on the third party website140 via any of a number of methods. For example, the third party website140 may send a message to the social networking website 100 when aparticular action by a member occurs on the third party website 140. Inone example, if the third party website 140 is a commercial website onwhich members may purchase items, the third party website 140 may informthe social networking website 100 when a member of the social networkingwebsite 100 buys an item on the third party website 140.

In another embodiment, the social networking website 100 logs actionstaken by its members in the real world. These actions may be recorded byan action terminal 150, which observes qualifying actions and thencommunicates that action to the social networking website 100. Thecommunication may be via email, SMS, or any other appropriate means,where the communicated message includes sufficient information for thesocial networking website 100 to populate the action log 160 with anentry describing the action. The action terminal 150 may comprise anysuitable devices or systems for the particular type of action to betracked.

In one embodiment, the action to be tracked is a credit cardtransaction, where a member of the social networking website 100 mayoptionally opt in by registering a credit card. When the registeredcredit card is used in a qualifying way (e.g., a purchase made at apoint of sale), the credit card company (or clearinghouse) sends amessage to the social networking website 100. In this scenario, acomputing system at the credit card company or clearinghouse serves as aaction terminal 150. The message may contain information about thecredit card transaction, such the item purchased, the date, and locationof the purchase. The social networking system thus tracks real-worldactions such as this purchase in the action log 160.

Another example illustrating real-world actions that may be trackedinvolves the member's location. A member may configure a cellular phonehaving location technology (e.g., GPS) to communicate the member'slocation to the social networking website 100. This may be accomplished,for example, by downloading an application to the cellular phone, wherethe application polls the location unit in the phone and sends a messagecontaining the member's location to the social networking website 100.This may be performed periodically or upon certain triggering eventsassociated with locations. For example, a triggering event can includethe member being within to a specific city, or at particular destinationsuch as a restaurant, business, or venue. In this application, thecellular phone (or other GPS-enabled device) serves as the actionterminal 150.

Another example illustrating real-world actions that may be trackedinvolves what program material the member is accessing on a televisionsystem. A television and/or set-top receiver may act as an actionterminal 150 and transmit a message indicating that a member is viewing(or recording) a particular program on a particular channel at aparticular time. Again, these examples are presented to illustrate someof the types of devices and actions that may be captured as actions by amember and communicated to the social networking website 100. Alimitless variety of other applications may be implemented to capturereal-world actions associated with a particular member and send thatinformation to the social networking website 100.

After an amount of time, the action log 160 will become populated with anumber of entries that describe actions taken by the members of thesocial networking website 100. The action log 160 thus contains a veryrich set of data about the actions of the members, and can be analyzedand filtered to identify trends and relationships in the actions of themembers, as well as affinities between the members and various objects.This action log can, in some cases, be filtered to include only actionsthat are likely to be interesting to other members.

At some point in its operation, the social networking website 100 willneed to obtain a social ad 180 to display on the website. FIG. 1illustrates a process in which a social ad is generated for one of thefriends of the member. To generate a social ad 180 for one of themember's friends, the website 100 accesses the action log 160 and adatabase of ad requests 175. The database of ad requests 175 include anumber of requests that define criteria for creating a social ad 180.Using the ad requests 175 and the action log 160, the website 100applies a social ad generation algorithm 170 to create one or moresocial ads 180 tailored for the particular friend. Each generated socialad 180 comprises an advertising message that communicates a messageabout at least one member action from the action log 160. In oneembodiment, the social ad 180 communicates a message about the actionsof some number of friends of the member. For example, a member mayreceive a message like “Three of your friends have joined the “YaleAlumni Network.” The advertising message may also include additionalcontent from the advertiser. The advertising message is communicated tothe friend, for example as a message on the friend's home page, in anemail message, in a list or newsfeed of other advertising messages andstories describing various actions taken, or any other electroniccommunication medium. The ad requests 175 and the ad generationalgorithm 170 are described in more detail below.

In another embodiment, the action log can be divided into multipleaction logs, each such action logs containing actions taken by aparticular member. The actions could also be stored initially in thesemember specific action logs. To generate a social ad for a particularmember, the website would access the action logs of the member's friendsand a database of ad requests. Using the ad requests and one or more ofthe action logs, the website applies a social ad generation algorithm tocreate one or more social ads tailored for the particular member.

Website Architecture

FIG. 2 is a high level block diagram illustrating a system environmentsuitable for operation of a social networking website 100. The systemenvironment comprises one or more client devices 210, one or morethird-party websites 140, a social networking website 100, and a network220. In alternative configurations, different and/or additional modulescan be included in the system.

The client devices 210 comprise one or more computing devices that canreceive member input and can transmit and receive data via the network220. For example, the client devices 210 may be desktop computers,laptop computers, smart phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), orany other device including computing functionality and datacommunication capabilities. The client devices 220 are configured tocommunicate via network 220, which may comprise any combination of localarea and/or wide area networks, using both wired and wirelesscommunication systems. As described above, the third party website 140and the action terminal 150 are coupled to the network 220 forcommunicating messages to the social networking website 100 about themembers' actions off the website 100.

The social networking website 100 comprises a computing system thatallows members to communicate or otherwise interact with each other andaccess content as described herein. The social networking website 100stores member profiles that describe the members of a social network,including biographic, demographic, and other types of descriptiveinformation, such as work experience, educational history, hobbies orpreferences, location, and the like. The website 100 further stores datadescribing one or more relationships between different members. Therelationship information may indicate members who have similar or commonwork experience, group memberships, hobbies, or educational history.Additionally, the social network host site 230 includes member-definedrelationships between different members, allowing members to specifytheir relationships with other members. For example, these memberdefined relationships allows members to generate relationships withother members that parallel the members' real-life relationships, suchas friends, co-workers, partners, and so forth. Members may select frompredefined types of relationships, or define their own relationshiptypes as needed.

FIG. 3 is an example block diagram of a social networking website 100.The social networking website 100 includes a web server 350, an actionlogger 360, an action log 160, a newsfeed generator 370, an ad server380, a database of ad requests 175, a member profile store 305, a groupstore 310, an event store 315, an application data store 320, atransaction store 325, and a content store 330. In other embodiments,the social networking website 100 may include additional, fewer, ordifferent modules for various applications.

The web server 350 links the social networking website 100 via thenetwork 220 to one or more client devices 210, as well as to one or morethird party websites 140. The web server 350 may include a mail serveror other messaging functionality for receiving and routing messagesbetween the social networking website 100 and the client devices 210 orthird party websites 140. The messages can be instant messages, queuedmessages (e.g., email), text and SMS messages, or any other suitablemessaging technique.

The action logger 360 is capable of receiving communications from theweb server 350 about member actions on and/or off the social networkingwebsite 100. As described in more detail below in connection with FIG.4, the action logger 360 populates the action log 160 with informationabout these member actions tracked in the log 160.

The newsfeed generator 370 generates communications for each memberabout information that may be relevant to the member. Thesecommunications may take the form of stories, each story is aninformation message comprising one or a few lines of information aboutan action in the action log that is relevant to the particular member.The stories are presented to a member via one or more pages of thesocial networking website 100, for example in each member's home page ornewsfeed page. The operation of the newsfeed generator 370 is describedin more detail below in connection with FIGS. 4 and 6.

The ad server 380 performs the ad selection algorithm 170 discussionabove. The operation of the ad server 380 is described in more detailbelow in connection with FIGS. 4 and 9. The ad server 380 iscommunicatively coupled to the database of ad requests 175 and to theaction log 160 for this purpose.

As discussed above, the social networking website 100 maintains dataabout a number of different types of objects with which a member mayinteract on the website 100. To this end, each of the member profilestore 305, the group store 310, the event store 315, the applicationdata store 320, and the transaction store 325 stores a data structure tomanage the data for each instance of the corresponding type of objectmaintained by the website 100. The data structures comprise informationfields that are suitable for the corresponding type of object. (Forexample, the event store 315 contains data structures that include thetime and location for an event, whereas the member profile store 305contains data structures with fields suitable for describing a member'sprofile.) When a new object of a particular type is created, the website100 initializes a new data structure of the corresponding type, assignsa unique object identifier to it, and begins to add data to the objectas needed. This might occur, for example, when a member defines a newevent, wherein the website 100 would generate a new instance of an eventin the event store 315, assign a unique identifier to the event, andbegin to populate the fields of the event with information provided bythe member.

Publishing Social Information, Stories, and Advertisements to Members

FIG. 4 illustrates a process in which member actions are logged in theaction log 160, in one embodiment. In this process, a member uses amember client device 210 to perform 405 an action in connection with thesocial networking website 100. This action may be a member selection ofa link on the website 100 using the member client device 210, and theselection of the link is thus received by the web server 350. Asdescribed above, however, the website 100 may receive messages fromthird party websites 140 and/or from action terminals 150 about memberactions performed off the social networking website 100. Uponnotification of the member's action, the web server 350 reports 410 theaction to the action logger 360, which logs 415 the action in the actionlog as described above.

This process for obtaining log entries in the action log 10 of variousmember actions repeats each time a member of the social networkingwebsite 100 performs an action. In this way, the action log 10, overtime, may store a rich information set about the actions of thewebsite's members, which can then be leveraged for marketing purposes.The website 100 may ignore certain member actions, such as those thathave little or no significance to the purpose of the system, to avoidusing memory and computing resources to track actions that areinsignificant.

FIG. 5 illustrates a process for generating social ads in accordancewith one embodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, the processfor generating social ads is used for a social networking website 100that also publishes information to its members about the actions ofother members to whom the members are connected, in this case, friends.This information published to members about their friends outside thecontext of the social ads is provided in the form of short newsfeedstories (information messages) about the members' friends. The newsfeedstories are displayed to a member on a member's home page, for example.For each member, the website 100 is configured to generate apersonalized set of newsfeed stories and social ads that are likely tobe relevant to the member. Although described in the newsfeed context,in other embodiments the social ads may be generated by the website 100and published to members in a website 100 that does not use newsfeedstories or publishes the social ads outside the context of newsfeedstories, such as in banner ads.

In a first step, a member requests 505 a web page from the socialnetworking website 100 via the member device 210. This may be an initialweb page that is presented when a member logs into the website 100, orit may be any other page displayed by the website 100 in response tomember selections. The web server 350 handles the request and,determining that the requested web page will require the display of asocial ad, the web server 350 begins the process of generating thesocial ad in the website 100. The web server 350 requests 510 storiesfrom the newsfeed generator 370. As mentioned above, this request 510includes a request for stories as well as social advertisements, as bothof these items may be presented in the same interface as items thatcontain information about the actions that concern people or otherobjects on the website 100 in which the member has an interest. Socialads thus can be, at least in some cases, paid or sponsored stories. Inother embodiments, the web server 350 may merely request a social ad fordisplay on the requested web page.

In response to the request for stories, the newsfeed generator 370queries 515 the action log 160 for information that may be relevant tothe member, based on the member's action and profile properties, and theaction log 160 returns 520 the requested set of actions to the newsfeedgenerator 370. The newsfeed generator 370 then generates 525 thenewsfeed stories using this information. One embodiment of a process forrequesting relevant information and generating the newsfeed stories isdescribed in more detail in connection with FIG. 6.

In addition to generating 525 newsfeed stories, the newsfeed generator370 queries 530 the ad server 380 for one or more social ads. The adserver 380 generates 535 the requested social ads according to a socialad generation algorithm 170 (see FIG. 1). One embodiment of a processfor generating the social ad is described in more detail in connectionwith FIG. 9. Once the social ad is generated 535, the ad server 380returns 540 the social ad to the newsfeed generator 370. The newsfeedgenerator 370 then combines 545 the newsfeed stories and the social adsinto a single list and sends 550 them to the web server 350 forpresentation to the member. The web server 350 then publishes thenewsfeed stories and the social ads on the requested web page andprovides 555 the web page to the member. The member is thus presentedwith relevant information about the member's friends' actions. Thisinformation may be paid for by an advertiser and may include additionalinformation about that advertiser, its products, and/or its services.Described in more detail below, FIG. 8 is an example of a combination ofnewsfeed stories and social ads presented on a web page to a member.

FIG. 6 illustrates a process for generating newsfeed stories inconnection with member actions on a social networking website 100. Thisprocess may be performed by a newsfeed generator 370 in the website 100,as in the process illustrated in FIG. 5. The newsfeed generator 370receives 605 a request for a set of newsfeed stories for a particularmember. In response, the newsfeed generator 370 obtains 610 a listing ofany actions contained in the action log 160 that are related to themember. In one embodiment, entries in the action log 160 are consideredto be related to the member if they contain one of the member's friendsor another object (such as an event or group) with which the member isconnected. The objects with which a member is connected may be definedin the member's profile. Various other rules may be defined fordetermining whether particular entries in the action log 160 arerelevant to a particular member, depending on the goal and purpose ofthe system.

Once the relevant actions are obtained, the newsfeed generator 370generates 615 a newsfeed story for each action. The stories may containvarying amounts of information, depending on the type of action that isbeing reported. FIG. 7 illustrates a generic newsfeed story, whichcontains a member field 705, an action field 710, an optional targetfield 715, an optional object field 720, and an optional content field725. An example newsfeed story that conforms to this story format is:

[Member field 705] [Action field 710] [Target field 715] [Object field720].

An example newsfeed story in this format is:

-   -   “John Smith invited Bob Roberts to John's 21st Birthday Party”        where the member target are link anchors to the respective        members, and the object is a link anchor to an event. The        example story above may further include graphics, links, or        other content information for the Content field 725.

Because screen real estate is limited, and because for a given memberthere could be hundreds, potentially thousands, of stories that coulddisplayed at any given time, the newsfeed generator 370 must generallyselect a subset of all the possible newsfeed stories for display to themember. Preferably, the newsfeed generator 370 selects the stories thatwould be most interesting to the particular member. It is noted that thenewsfeed generator 370 performs this process for each memberindividually, so the selection of relevant information for one memberneed not, and generally should not, affect the selection of relevantinformation (such as newsfeed stories and social ads) that are displayedto any other member.

In one embodiment, the newsfeed generator 370 computes 620 an affinityscore for each of a set of candidate stories. A member may haveaffinities for other members, types of actions, types of objects, andcontent. Accordingly, the affinity score may be based on a weightedfunction that takes into account the set of affinities for theparticular member for each type of data field that is in a candidatestory. The website may obtain a member's affinities based on themember's express interests (whether provided directly or indirectly, forexample, through communications with other members) and/or impliedlybased on the member's actions (e.g., a member's checking of anothermember's page indicates an interest in that other member, or clicking onparticular types of links may indicate an interest in similar links). Anaffinity, as measured for example by an affinity score, need not be anactual subjective interest or lack of interest that a member has forsomething (i.e., the member likes punk rock music, and dislikesvegetarian restaurants), but rather it may merely be a correlationbetween something in the candidate story and some information stored inconnection with that member, whether is an action taken by the member, acommunication involving the member, a characteristic, feature orexpressed interest in the member's profile.

Continuing the example from above, if a member has a high affinity scorefor John Smith or Bob Roberts and for being invited to events, theexample story would tend to have a relatively high affinity score. Oncethe affinity scores are computed, the newsfeed generator 370 publishes625 the top N newsfeed stories to the web page, where N is the number ofstories allocated for the web page.

FIG. 9 illustrates a process for generating social ads, which processmay be performed by the ad server 380. The ad server receives 905 arequest for a social ad for a particular member. In one embodiment, thisrequest specifies the particular member by including the member's uniquemember identifier with the request. The ad server 380 then applies 910the targeting criteria for each of the ad requests in the ad requestdatabase 175 to the member, if any. As described in more detail below inconnection with FIG. 11, an ad request may specify a set of targetingcriteria to direct the social ads to only those members who fit certaincriteria. An example targeting criteria may specify any members betweenthe ages of 18 and 30 and who have music in their interests. The adserver 380 would thus apply this targeting criteria to a particularmember to determine whether to use or ignore this ad request for themember. This would then be repeated for each ad request, using thecorresponding targeting criteria contained in each.

The ad server 380 then queries the action log 160 to obtain 915 actionentries that match any of the ad requests whose targeting criteria weresatisfied in step 910. As described in more detail below in connectionwith FIG. 11, an ad request may specify a type of object for which anaction related to that object triggers a social ad. For example, topromote a concert for a new band, an ad request may specify an eventobject created for that concert. Accordingly, if one of the member'sfriends added the concert event to that friend's profile, the ad server380 may obtain 915 that action from the log 160 to serve as a candidatefor a social ad.

Each of the triggering actions that were obtained 915 from the log 160for the qualifying ad requests represent a candidate social ad that maybe generated by the ad server 380. To select which one or ones of thecandidate social ads to generate, the ad server computes 925 an expectedvalue for each of the candidate social ads. In one embodiment, theexpected value is computed as a function of a per-click bid price forthe ad weighted by an estimated probability that the social ad will beclicked by the potential recipient. To estimate the probability that aparticular member will click on an ad, the ad server 380 computes thisprobability as a weighted function of the member's affinities for theobjects in the action entry that triggered the candidate social adand/or the member that took such action. In one embodiment, the affinityscore between a member and a candidate social ad may be computed in thesame way as the affinity score between a member and a newsfeed story iscomputed.

Once the expected values are computed for the candidate social ads, thead server composes 930 a social ad for the candidate with the highestexpected value. This social ad represents the social ad that will bringthe most revenue value to the social networking website 100 due to itscombination of the probability that it will be selected and the bidamount that will be paid to the website 100 if it is selected. If morethan one social ad is desired, the ad server 380 may compose 930 asocial ad for the desired number of candidate ads having the highestexpected values.

In an alternative process, the ad server 380 may create a number ofsocial ads in a batch process and then store the social ads in a localstorage. This way, a set of social ads are ready to be provided for eachmember without having to be created in real time. This helps with thescalability of the social networking website 100, as real-time creationof social ads may be difficult for websites 100 with a large number ofmembers and a resulting large number of requests for ads. Creating thesocial ads in a batch process also helps avoid spikes in the demand forresources. Since the creation of social ads may depend on informationand preferences that change dynamically, the ad server 380 mayperiodically (e.g., every 15 minutes) dump the social ads and create anew batch.

FIG. 8 is a view of a portion of a web page for displaying newsfeedstories and social ads. In this example, a member is shown a list ofinformation items about other people and/or things that the socialnetworking website 100 predicts will be interesting to the member. Thefirst entry 810 and the fourth entry 840 are each a newsfeed story thatcommunicates to the member that one or more of the member's friendsjoined a particular group on the social networking website 100. Thesecond entry 820 is another newsfeed story that communicates thatanother member posted a video to the website 100 and includes a link towatch that video.

Also contained within these newsfeed stories, in this example, is asocial ad 830. This example social ad 830 communicates to the memberthat one of the member's friends associated their member profile with abusiness. (In this example, adding a link to another business profile,rather than to another member profile, is called becoming a “fan” ofthat business, rather than a “friend” of the other member.) This socialad 830 is an example of brand advertising, where an advertiser merelywishes to extend the recognition and value of the brand, instead ofmaking a particular sale. In other embodiments, the social ad 830 mayalso contain content, such as a link to the advertiser's own website,and/or a call to action for the advertising.

One benefit of mixing the newsfeed stories and the social ads in asingle list presented to a member is that there may be little or nodifferentiation between advertising and general information that amember would want to know. Members visit social networking websites 100to keep up to date on what their friends are doing, and the social adcan be as useful to the member as any other newsfeed story. Because thesocial ads and newsfeed stories may all be taken from the action log160, it may be impossible for a member to determine whether an entry inthe member's newsfeed is a newsfeed story or a social ad. In fact, thecontent of a social ad could actually show up as an organic, unpaidnewsfeed story in other contexts. By paying for the social ad, theadvertiser simply accelerates a newsfeed story so that it is published(or at least has a higher probability of being published) to themember's web page in a situation where it might not otherwise beselected for publication. In other embodiments, by paying for the ad theadvertiser maximizes the chances the newsfeed story will be published toother members connected to the member that took the action. In someembodiments, the social ad may contain additional ad content appended tothe story, so the social ads and the newsfeed stories may differ intheir content.

Advertising Model

FIG. 10 illustrates an event diagram for an advertising model inaccordance with one embodiment of the invention. In this advertisingmodel, a number of advertisers 1020 bid for the placement of ads on asocial networking website 100. A social networking website operator 1010receives these bids, for example, through a web interface accessible tothe advertisers 1020. Accompanying each bid is a description of the adthat the advertiser 1020 would like to publish to selected web pages onthe social networking website 100. The web interface may thus allow anadvertiser 1020 to specify all of the relevant information for an adrequest, including the bid amount for the ad. In one embodiment, theadvertisers 1020 specify ad requests, such as the one shown in FIG. 11.

FIG. 11 is a diagram of some of the components of an ad request 1100,which an advertiser 1020 provides the social networking website operator1010. The ad request 1100 may be stored by the social networking website100 in the ad request database 175. In the example embodiment shown, thead request 1100 comprises a title field 1105, a body field 1110, a linkfield 1115, a bid amount field 1120, and a social object field 1125.

The title field 1105 and body field 1110 may be used by the website topublish the social ad in a story format. For example, the social ad mayinclude the title field 1105 as the header and then a textual story in aformat as shown in FIG. 7. For example, the body field 1110 may specify:“[Member.Name] has purchased tickets for [Event.Name].” The resultingsocial ad would contain this text, with the names of the Member andEvent objects associated with the action that the social ad isdescribing inserted into the text as indicated. The link field 1115 mayalso be added to the content of the social ad, for example, forproviding the call to action of the ad. Lastly, the ad request 1100 maycontain additional advertising content 1130 to be appended to the socialad. This content 1130 may include any type of media content suitable forpresentation on a web page, including pictures, video, audio,hyperlinks, and any other suitable content.

The bid amount field 1120 specified in the ad request 110 may indicatean amount of money that the advertiser 1020 will pay for each time amember presented with the social ad clicks on it. Alternatively, the bidamount field 1120 may specify an amount that the advertiser 1020 willpay the website operator 1010 each time the social ad is displayed to amember or a certain number of members. The social object field 1125specifies an object (or multiple objects) for which an action related tothe object will trigger the social ad. This is described above inconnection with step 915 of the process for generating a social ad,shown in FIG. 9. In addition, the ad request 1100 may allow theadvertiser 1020 to specify targeting criteria 1135, the use of which isdescribed above in connection with step 910 of the process forgenerating a social ad. This targeting criteria may be a filter to applyto fields of a member's member profile or other object, and/or it mayinclude free form text.

Turning again to the event diagram of FIG. 10, the social networkingwebsite operator 1010 receives ad requests from a number of advertisers1020. The social networking website operator 1010, via the website 100,receives a number of actions taken by a member 1030. As discussed above,these actions may be on the website 100 or on a third-party website 140,or real-world actions recorded and communicated to the social networkingwebsite operator 1010. These actions are potential triggers for one ormore social ads delivered to the member's friends 1040. For example, ifthe member takes an action that is identified in an ad request 1100 ofone of the advertisers 1020, the social networking website operator 1010may generate a social ad based on that action and publish that social adto a web page provided to one or more of the friends 1040. It is notedthat the diagram of FIG. 10 is from the perspective of the member 1030,and the member's friends 1040 are also members of the website 100.Accordingly, actions taken by them may result in social ads delivered totheir friends (which includes the member 1030). In addition, a member'sactions, either alone or combined with other member's actions, mayresult in social ads delivered to members who have some otherrelationship to that member, such as other members who belong to samenetwork or group as the member.

Social Ads Based on Actions on Third-Party Websites

FIG. 12 illustrates a process in which actions from third party websites140 are communicated to and used by a social networking web site 100 togenerate social ads, as described above. In the example shown, a usermakes a purchase on a third party website 140 hosted on a differentdomain than the social networking website 100. The fact of this purchaseis then communicated to the social networking website 100, which usesthe information to publish social ads to one or more friends of theuser. Although described in the context of a purchase on the third partywebsite 140, the technique is not limited to purchases. Any other useractions on a third party website 140 may be communicated to the socialnetworking website 100 for use thereby, including registering for anaccount, viewing an item, saving an item to an account, renting an item,making a reservation, subscribing to an information resource, or anyother action which the operator of the third party website decides toselect for such tracking. More specific examples of other types ofactions in other domains that may be useful for generating social ads onthe social networking website 100 include purchasing an article ofclothing, subscribing to a blog, storing an item in a wish list,purchasing tickets to a concert, registering for a marathon, making aflight or restaurant reservation, and donating to a charity.

In the example of FIG. 12, a user operates a client application, such asa web browser, to view a web page at the online store hosted by a thirdparty website 140. The user decides to purchase an item, for example awidget. The user will typically be presented with a purchase page 1210on which the user can confirm the purchase, for example by clicking on a“Buy” button. The third party website 140 generates a message thatidentifies the third party website 140 and describes the type of action(e.g., indicating whether the action is a purchase, a rating, a requestfor information, a subscription, or the like, as well as any otherinformation needed to describe the action, such as the item that waspurchased). In this example, the message would identify the action as apurchase and would describe the item that was purchased. The third partywebsite 140 then transmits 1220 this message to the social networkingwebsite 100.

In one embodiment, the third party website 140 and/or the socialnetworking website 100 determine whether the user is a member of thesocial networking website 100. For example, the third party website 140may access a cookie on the user's computer, where the cookie isassociated with the social networking website 100. Since the socialnetworking website 100 and the third party website 140 are on differentdomains, the user's browser program may include security features thatnormally prevent a website from one domain from accessing content onother domains. To avoid this, the third party website 140 may use nestediframes, where the third party website 140 serves a web page thatincludes a nested iframe in the social network website's domain, therebyallowing the nested iframe to access the user information and send theinformation back to the third party website 140. Repeated nesting ofiframes further allows the social networking site 100 to communicateinformation back to the third party website 140. By using thistechnique, the third party website 140 and the social networking website100 can communicate about the user without sharing any of the user'spersonal information and without requiring the user to log into thesocial networking website 100.

After the social networking website 100 receives the messagecommunicating the action information from the third party website 140,it generates a confirmation message 1230 to be displayed to the user onthe third party website 140. For example, the confirmation message mayprovide a sample of the story that could be published to the user'sfriends based on the user's actions on the third party website 140. Inthis example, the message is: “John Smith bought <something> at <PartnerSite>” (where the user would be “John Smith,”<something> would bereplaced by the name of item purchased, and <Partner Site> would bereplaced by the name and a link to the third party website 140). Theconfirmation message 1230 is passed 1240 back to the third partywebsite, where it is displayed in the web page 1210 on the domain of thethird party website 140.

On this web page 1210, this confirmation message 1230 informs the userof the story that the user's friends may be provided via the socialnetworking website 100. The confirmation message 1230 may also allow theuser to opt out of the feature to prevent the message from being shownto others. In other embodiments, the user can opt-in or opt-out ofallowing to be published stories, or particular types of stories,generated from actions taken by particular third party websites (orgroups of third party websites) in advance of the user taking suchactions.

At some later point in time, the social networking website 100 maycommunicate the story about the user's purchase to other members whohave a connection to the user on the social networking website 100. Thiscommunication may be in the form of a series of stories published onanother user's home page 1250 on the social networking website 100, inaccordance with the embodiments described above.

In this way, the social networking website 100 can communicate a user'sactions on other third party websites 140 to the user's friends on thesocial networking website 230. Beneficially, communicating a user actionon a third party website 140 to the user's connections on a socialnetworking website 100 may motivate these other users to perform asimilar action. For example, notifying a member's friends that a memberhas purchased a specific movie may prompt the friends to purchase themovie as well, or at least generate some interest in that movie.Moreover, this technique may be used in combination with the advertisingmodel and ad requests described above, or it may be performed by thesocial networking website independently of any advertising model.

Social Ads and Messages Presented on a Third Party Website

As described above, actions by users performed off of a socialnetworking website (e.g., actions on third party websites or in the realworld) may be used to generate social ads on the social networkingwebsite. Conversely, in various embodiments of the invention, a socialnetworking website can collect its users' actions and then presentsocial ads and/or other information concerning actions taken by itsusers on third party websites. In this way, the techniques for promotingactions using this information can be extended beyond a socialnetworking website itself.

Embodiments of the invention may use any of the mechanisms describedabove for collecting user actions and generating social ads therefrom.For example, a social networking website may log a number of actionsabout a user's connections on a particular third party website, such asthe purchase of a particular item. When the user visits the third partywebsite and views a web page associated with that item, the third partywebsite may communicate with the social networking website to determinethat the user's connections have also purchased this item. Mechanismsfor communicating information about a user between a third party websiteand a social networking website are described above.

Once the third party web site receives this information, it can presentthe information to the user. For example, when viewing the page for amovie that is on sale via the third party website, the third partywebsite may present a message to the user that a certain number of theuser's connections from the social networking website have rated themovie positively. For example, the message might read: “Ten of yourfriends have liked this movie.” The user is thus encouraged to purchasethe movie on the third party website because the user's friends from thesocial networking website like the movie.

Accordingly, social ads or other information concerning actions taken bya user's friends may be presented to users off the social networkingwebsite, just as on the website as described above. Used in this way,the information can help encourage a user to take an action (such as apurchase) at the point the user is deciding to act. The information neednot be in response to an advertising effort in which one of the websitesis being compensated, as this exposure may have a synergistic effect forboth the social networking website and the third party website.

This technique can be used in a variety of other contexts. For example,the technique can be used to communicate a user's interest in particularitems or content on third party websites. The user can be provided withinformation by the third party website that is related to contentoffered by the third party website, but where that information isgathered by the social networking website. The third party websites maythus leverage the information gathered by the social networking website,including the inherent value of the information being about thirdparties to whom the user has some connection.

The user's experience can be integrated between the third party websiteand the social networking website such that the information is used inboth domains. For example, a user's movie preferences can be access bythe user's friends on a social networking website, while the user canalso view the user's friends' movie ratings on a third party websitewhere the user buys or rents movies. In addition, third party websitesmay provide content from the social networking website, such asnewsfeeds or series of stories about a user's friends that the userwould normally be presented with on the social networking website. Theseare just a few examples of applications for the cross-domain use ofsocially relevant information, some but not all of which involveadvertising.

In one embodiment, the user interface on the third party websiteprovides a bidirectional interface in which user interface elements fromthe social networking website domain and the third party website domainaffect the presentation of user interface elements of the other. Forexample, if content from a social networking website is presented in aframe (e.g., an iframe) on a web page of the third party website,actions that a user takes on the frame may affect how information in theweb page is presented. These actions may be as simple as a resizingevent of the frame, or more complicated such as a mouse-over of an itemin the social networking frame causing a corresponding item in the thirdparty domain part of the web page being enhanced.

In one particular example, a frame from a social networking website maypresent a list of a user's friends. If the user clicks on a particularfriend, the social networking website may communicate to the third partywebsite a list of items that the friend has purchased (withoutdisclosing to the website any information, including the identity, ofthose friends). The third party website may then highlight these itemson its own web page, thereby providing the user with an easy interfacefor locating items on the website to purchase based on the user'sfriends' purchase histories.

Alternative Applications

Embodiments of the invention have been described in the context ofsocial networking websites. However, the techniques described herein maybe applied to a number of other types of websites that are notnecessarily concerned with social networking. Such websites include anywebsite that tracks any kind of information about users of the websiteand then provides that information to other users. For example, a retailwebsite may keep track of users who make purchases from the website,then communicating the information about some of its users to otherusers using the techniques described herein.

In this sense, the connections between users of a website need not beformal or express connections, as is common in the social networkingcontext. Instead, the connections may be implied or otherwise assumeddue to common characteristics, traits, or user actions. For example, ifthe website keeps track of personal information about its users, it maycommunicate information to a particular user about the actions of otherusers with something in common. For example, a website might tell a userwho was graduated from a University: “There are 26 other graduates fromUniversity who have bought this book on this website.” In anotherexample, a web blog dedicated to electronic gadgets may tell a personwho comments on a particular topic in the blog: “Four people who havecommented on this topic own the product. Click on the link below topurchase it, too.”

In another context, the techniques described herein may be used withsearch engines. For example, users who search for a particular item on asearch engine are more likely to be interested in items that theirfriends or other connections have bought. If the search engine keepstrack of users' connections, the search engine can inform a user of theuser's connections' actions in addition to providing the user withsearch results. If the search engine keeps other information concerninga user, such as biographic, demographic, and other types of descriptiveinformation, including interests, the search engine can inform the userof actions taken by third parties who have provided some of the same orsimilar information. The search engine may also change the order of thesearch results presented to the user based on the user's connections'actions, or actions of third parties who have provided the same orsimilar information.

In another embodiment, the social ads and other informational messagesdescribed herein may be presented outside of the social networkingwebsite. For example, information about actions taken by members of thesocial network may be received and logged by the social networkingwebsite, and social ads and/or other informational messages may begenerated based on these actions. These informational message can becommunicated from the social networking website to another domain, suchas a different website, and presented to one or more members of thesocial network. As described herein, messages about a particular memberwould be presented to others members with whom the member has aconnection in the social network. In this way, the benefits of thesocial ads and other informational messages described herein can beachieved even outside the social networking website.

SUMMARY

The foregoing description of the embodiments of the invention has beenpresented for the purpose of illustration; it is not intended to beexhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed.Persons skilled in the relevant art can appreciate that manymodifications and variations are possible in light of the abovedisclosure. For example, although the foregoing embodiments have beendescribed in the context of a social network website, it will apparentto one of ordinary skill in the art that the invention may be used withany electronic social network service, even if it is not providedthrough a website. Any computer-based system that provides socialnetworking functionality can be used in accordance with the presentinvention even if it relies, for example, on e-mail, instant messaging,or other form of electronic communications, and any other technique forcommunicating between users. The invention is thus not limited to anyparticular type of communication system, network, protocol, format orapplication.

Some portions of this description describe the embodiments of theinvention in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations ofoperations on information. These algorithmic descriptions andrepresentations are commonly used by those skilled in the dataprocessing arts to convey the substance of their work effectively toothers skilled in the art. These operations, while describedfunctionally, computationally, or logically, are understood to beimplemented by computer programs or equivalent electrical circuits,microcode, or the like. Furthermore, it has also proven convenient attimes, to refer to these arrangements of operations as modules, withoutloss of generality. The described operations and their associatedmodules may be embodied in software, firmware, hardware, or anycombinations thereof.

Any of the steps, operations, or processes described herein may beperformed or implemented with one or more hardware or software modules,alone or in combination with other devices. In one embodiment, asoftware module is implemented with a computer program productcomprising a computer-readable medium containing computer program code,which can be executed by a computer processor for performing any or allof the steps, operations, or processes described.

Embodiments of the invention may also relate to an apparatus forperforming the operations herein. This apparatus may be speciallyconstructed for the required purposes, and/or it may comprise ageneral-purpose computing device selectively activated or reconfiguredby a computer program stored in the computer. Such a computer programmay be stored in a tangible computer readable storage medium or any typeof media suitable for storing electronic instructions, and coupled to acomputer system bus. Furthermore, any computing systems referred to inthe specification may include a single processor or may be architecturesemploying multiple processor designs for increased computing capability.

Embodiments of the invention may also relate to a computer data signalembodied in a carrier wave, where the computer data signal includes anyembodiment of a computer program product or other data combinationdescribed herein. The computer data signal is a product that ispresented in a tangible medium or carrier wave and modulated orotherwise encoded in the carrier wave, which is tangible, andtransmitted according to any suitable transmission method.

Finally, the language used in the specification has been principallyselected for readability and instructional purposes, and it may not havebeen selected to delineate or circumscribe the inventive subject matter.It is therefore intended that the scope of the invention be limited notby this detailed description, but rather by any claims that issue on anapplication based hereon. Accordingly, the disclosure of the embodimentsof the invention is intended to be illustrative, but not limiting, ofthe scope of the invention, which is set forth in the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for obtaining revenue from a website,the method comprising: generating multiple advertisements for a user ofa website, each advertisement communicating an action associated withanother user with whom the user has a connection on the website;computing an affinity score between the user and at least some of theadvertisements; receiving a bid amount associated with theadvertisements; selecting one or more of the advertisements based on theadvertisements' affinity scores and bid amounts; and publishing at leastone of the selected advertisements to a web page delivered to the user.2. The method of claim 1, wherein the bid amount for one or more of theadvertisements represents an amount of compensation to be received bythe website if the user takes a further action with respect to theadvertisement.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the further actioncomprises a user selection of a link on the advertisement.
 4. The methodof claim 1, wherein one or more of the advertisements communicate anaction taken on the website by another user with whom the user has aconnection.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of theadvertisements communicate an action taken on a third-party website byanother user with whom the user has a connection.
 6. The method of claim1, wherein one or more of the advertisements communicate an actionperformed by another user with whom the user has a connection, whereinthe action is communicated to the website and not directly observed bythe website.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the website is a socialnetworking website.
 8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:transmitting the web page with the one or more selected advertisementsto a device associated with the user for display thereon.
 9. A systemfor obtaining revenue from a website, the system comprising: a webserver configured to present advertisements on web pages; a profilestore containing a profile for each of a plurality of users of thewebsite, each profile identifying a connection to each of a plurality ofother users of the website; an advertisement request database forstoring a plurality of advertisement requests, each advertisementcommunicating an action associated with another user with whom the userhas a connection on the website, and each advertisement associated witha bid amount; and an advertising server capable of receivingadvertisement requests to advertise on the website, the advertisingserver configured to provide an advertisement to the web server, theadvertisement obtained by: computing an affinity score between the userand at least some of the advertisements, and selecting one or more ofthe advertisements based on the advertisements' affinity scores and bidamounts.
 10. The system of claim 9, wherein the bid amount for one ormore of the advertisements represents an amount of compensation to bereceived by the website if the user takes a further action with respectto the advertisement.
 11. The system of claim 10, wherein the furtheraction comprises a user selection of a link on the advertisement. 12.The system of claim 9, wherein one or more of the advertisementscommunicate an action taken on the website by another user with whom theuser has a connection.
 13. The system of claim 9, wherein one or more ofthe advertisements communicate an action taken on a third-party websiteby another user with whom the user has a connection.
 14. The system ofclaim 9, wherein one or more of the advertisements communicate an actionperformed by another user with whom the user has a connection, whereinthe action is communicated to the website without being directlyobserved by the website.
 15. The system of claim 9, wherein the websiteis a social networking website.